The Ringer NFL Show - Week 14 Recap: Bucs Beat the Bills in OT, Niners Pick Up an Important Road Win, and the Chiefs Rout the Raiders Again

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Kevin and Nora are joined by Benjamin Solak to discuss the Buccaneers and Niners winning in overtime, the Ravens injury woes continuing with Lamar Jackson leaving the game early in a loss to the Browns, and much more (2:55). Then Steven Ruiz joins to talk about the Chiefs blowing out the Raiders again and whether this performance means the Chiefs offense is getting back on track (52:30). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guests: Benjamin Solak and Steven Ruiz Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, long-time writer with the Atlantic Magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringar NFL show, part of the Ringar Podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark, joined in a Sunday night by Noel Pincey. I don't know what's going on. Kevin, I can't believe you're being so friendly when just a few moments ago, off Mike,

you were asking Benjamin Solac and myself to defend our resumes. It was, listen, the Urban Meyer story came out over the weekend. And in it, they said basically that he called his coworkers losers and made them defend their resumes. And I said, you know, that's how we start. Sunday night and that will continue because I coach the coaches. Every day you're on the ring or NFL show and it is so cruel. I defend I defend my coaching. Ben, what's going on, bud? Well, thanks. My favorite part of the Urban Meyer losers thing is he like is how hard he's trying to emphasize. Like I didn't call them losers. I'm just like tough on them and we're trying to like, you know,

build a culture and it's like, man, I've been around like people in my life. I know what people are like when they're angry and losers is a very low bar. I'm just going to, law of averages here, you probably went beyond losers, buddy. You're not going to convince me on this one. What I took from that was, like, I didn't call them losers. They are losers.

Right. Oh, shucks. Also, Urban, quick HR tip. Check the resumes before hiring them. Yeah. Second HR tip. Check your record as a head coach currently before calling other people losers.

Or watch your own offense at any point from an alleged offensive head coach. Third HR tip, general self-awareness. I think it's just all-encompassing. He literally, I remember because I was living in Florida when he was given the press conference, he was literally like, you know what? We're going to push our players hard,

but in return, we're going to give them the best staff. He literally said that. And then six months later, he was like, you're all losers. And I need to see some rest mates. So we'll be talking about that later. Well, if he finds the leaker, they're fired instantly. Which I'm sure sounds just so horrible.

to be unaffiliated with the 2021 Jacksonville Jaguars. How quickly is Trevor Lawrence trying to find some evidence that he was the leaker? I got to, coach, I'm the leaker. I'm sorry, you're going to have to release me now. I'm going to have to get at the situation. I'm so sorry for leaking. Okay, so we got a lot to get to. Horrible early slate, awesome afternoon and evening slate.

And that's, that was the tax we paid for having an awesome afternoon. We will start in Tampa Bay, where it was Tampa Bay 33, Buffalo 27. Tom Brady wins it on a 58-yard touchdown pass to Breshaad Parraman, a name I did not expect to win a game in 2021, especially a game of this magnitude. I have a lot of thoughts, but we'll start with you, Ben Zolak. This is a, this is one of the most interesting games too that's happened so far this season. Bills have been one of the most interesting teams just in terms of riddling out this unit that's beat up on so many bad teams, has lost. to pretty much every playoff team they've played since the win over the Chiefs. They're 0 and 5 and 1 score games.

There's just a lot of noise in between all of these very polar stats. And the bills are somewhere in the middle of that. And where exactly they are is really, really tough to riddle out right now. You get two different bounces of the ball. You get a flag that probably should have been thrown. And this team beat the Titans, beat the bucks, and it's sitting on top of the AFC. You know what I mean? It is really hard to figure out exactly where Buffalo is.

But what I think we can say with certainty, with surety having watched the game against the bucks, is that the bills built the team in the pursuit of optimization. They built the team to say, we're going to be really, really good at this really, really good thing. Namely, that's we're going to pass it a lot. We're going to be really good at throwing the football. And in doing so, they kind of push the frontier

on just how much you can trim elsewhere, just how many sacrifices you make, just how far out of balance can you get? Because we always suspected there might be point of diminishing returns here in terms of building for the pass over the run. And when you watch that first half against Tampa where they just did not hand the ball off and scored three points, you get the feeling just in your stomach, we're past that point of no return.

They've sold too much of their own skin, of their own flesh here, trying to become this thing. And teams are just forcing them to be anything else. And they don't really have those answers. That's a really tough thing for Buffalo and for teams. team building and for the fans and for right now we can talk about that, but just with a step back in general, that's an interesting thing to see because that's a riddle that we're trying to solve in the modern NFL is just how much can you build for the past, just how much can you

sacrifice? And I think we can say with certainty right now, Buffalo has gone too far. Hmm. Okay. By the way, Josh Allen left the game in a walking boot. He said he didn't think it was a big deal, but it's something to monitor. Nora, what did you think of this game? Well, like Ben said, they're pushing the limits in terms of how little of a run game they can get away with. Part of what they're having to do more and more to compensate for that is something that I've wanted them to do more and more of over the course of the season, which is involved Josh Allen in the running game. And that was really, really effective a lot of the time. But you get into the situation where late in that game when they're coming back, he's just doing everything. I mean,

he has over 100 yards rushing and he's still throwing 54 times in the game. And he's clearly a little bit hobbled. So part of testing those limits, I think Bruce Ariens said something to reporters after the game where he said, you know, I wouldn't put my quarterback in harm's way like that. And obviously, I think there's real effectiveness in doing that to a certain extent, but it also felt like they were having to do more and more of it because they just didn't have any other card to play. So I'm with Ben that I think it's clear that they're a little bit over that ledge of how reliant on the passing game you can be and get away with it over the course of a long NFL season when you're playing differently constructed defenses.

I still I still want to believe in them just because I think they have high end potential. Like they can be really exciting. And even in this game, we saw Josh Allen do some really, really good stuff. But they are not one of those teams that can win many different ways. and I think that's pretty scary. The other thing that I think is really important about this game is that the culture and the AFC playoff picture now. And who knows?

Like, that's just a mess. But that's a team that I've been pretty excited about. And because the Bills and the Bengals lost, they jumped into the sixth seed. And I'm really curious how that goes. I'm looking at the playoff picture right now. It's pretty wild. So as you mentioned, so the Bengals,

and the Browns are both out. It would go New England, Tennessee, Kansas City, Baltimore, Chargers, Colts, Bills, bills being the seventh seat. That's really not what we thought it was going to be a couple weeks ago. That's fascinating.

Okay, so I have a couple of takes, and one of them is counterintuitive. I came away from this game feeling neutral about the bills. I thought the bills were going to lose coming into this game. I thought that they were a 7-5 team coming in. I thought the bucks were really good.

I didn't have a lot of expectations. But in the middle of this game, when it was 249, when it was 27 to 10, the bills looked like and felt like, and if you listen to the CBS halftime report, Tracy Wolfson said that McDermott was, quote, struggling with words and real emotional trying to explain what happened to the bills in the first half. Okay. If you listen to all that and put it all together, the bills were about ready to give up. They were on tilt, man. Bagged it. Like, they were on the verge of if they got blown out in the second half, I would have felt very seriously,

even though they would have still been the seventh seed, and saying this team is not going to contend for anything this year. And I don't think they're still, I don't think they're aFC contenders or anything like that, but the fight back they had in the second half to almost win that game, Josh Allen's showing that he still has the capability to put the team on his back. That to me actually impressed me more than, than I thought it would.

And so I come away from this slightly in a very sick way and courage by the fact that the bills still had this fight in them because I felt like after the Monday night debacle and after this first half, I felt like there was a real chance that's going to slip away from them. And I didn't see that. Anything on the bucks guys? I just watched back the entire game and I came into the second half very determined to be like the bucks have to stop doing this where they sit on the ball with these big leads.

They were doing the right stuff, right? Like they were calling second and long passes. You know what I mean? Like they weren't just sitting on it. They just started missing the stuff they were getting. The bills were really soft and in zone and allowing a lot of underneath stuff early. They kind of tightened those screws a little bit and challenged Brady to make more intermediate throws

and they relied more on Poir and Hyde to get them out of their bad spots and they did so. Dane Jackson, who had to play for Travius White. Oh, baby. Played a really, really good game. I got called for a PI early, which I didn't love the call in general. But besides that, really impressive. Had a couple of key stops late in that game as well to get the ball back. So Buffalo, tighten the screws there on defense and just Tampa kind of missed their spots a little bit.

So Tampa's will, like Tampa keeps building these big leads and then not really finishing the game as well as you'd like in the second half. I'm not sure how much of that is just like we're the Super Bowl champions and we're going to the playoffs again. You know, I think, I think that's probably mostly it, which isn't great, but it's better than a lot of other realities. You know, could have gone for that fourth down. They're, you know, inside the 10. But besides that, I didn't have any, any concerning takeaway. What I will say is that the defensive look where they said, listen, if, like, for Buffalo, right, we've talked about Buffalo, right? Buffalo wants to be spread out.

They want to be four receivers. Shotgun, right, they don't remember the real pass projecting back. Todd Bull says, if you're going to live in it, I'm going to blitz it. And Bowles just never stopped. And it's, they started to get burned there at the end. Alan really started to make those great plays. And I agree with you. Alan was inspirational to watch.

I was getting hyped up watching, watching him play. It was awesome. But Bowles will tell you, listen, if you're going to give me six-man protection, I'm going to blitz it until the cows come home. And it was a good reminder of what Bowles did

during that playoff run last year, which is if Tampa catches these past heavy offenses, these light offenses, bowls will punch you the mouth until you give up. And that, that's a good reminder of how well that plays against play. off teams. Nor anything else about this or the ASC playoff picture.

Well, I just think your point about the bills is a really important one. Because if you had, if this had been a total blowout and they hadn't come back and you combine that first half with the Patriots game, the picture you're getting is of a team that's demoralized and completely reeling. And it's hard to be able to even over the course of a game, a half, get your shit together and clearly they were able to. And I think a lot of that is, is Josh Allen, who I think was really, really impressive just to be able to do that. But it wasn't just him. I mean, if a couple, look, everybody gets bad calls, like, that's fine. But if a couple of those things go differently and

the bills win this game, I mean, Matt Milano sacking Brady on third and six on the last drive and regulation, that's like the play of his life, right? If a couple little things are different. So, I do think the fact that they put up a fight is pretty important because earlier, like, several hours ago, just several hours today. It kind of seemed like, yeah, the coach is losing his mind and the results have been really bad. And this team that was leading the AFC at one point is just totally crumbling. And at least it doesn't seem like that's happening. So I'm with you that if anything, it was sort of a neutral result for them. everybody talks about losing the

the Super Bowl as a traumatic experience for the next offseason, but losing the conference championship game might be even worse because you didn't even get the fanfare. You don't even get to say, you know, you won the conference or whatever.

I remember Jim Harbaugh at the owner's meetings, one of those years that they lost, he said it was like Cicephas, which is, you know, rolling the rock up the hill, or, you know, putting it on your back. And I kind of think that that's,

that's sort of how these teams view it when you get so close to the mountaintop and it's emotionally draining when you start to realize and they have over the past couple of weeks that they're not the team they were last year and that the goals they had where they thought okay we only had to beat kansas city that's not the goal anymore the goal is they have to to be better than than mac jones and this new look patriots team be better than the damn colts and then you can get to kansas city um so i think as the the goals kind of recalibrate um that there's there's an emotional toll that All right, moving on to Niners 26, Bengals, 23. Some of my favorite plays of the year, Ben, so like, the George Kettle catch, some of those Jamar Chase Joe Burrow throws. This is an amazing game. Take it away. The best part about you saying the George Kittle catch is like which. Which one?

It's a third down one where he high pointed it like in a way the human shouldn't be able to. Yeah, which like, watching Kittle and Debo. learn how to catch Jimmy Garoppolo balls. Like, not learn how it's been here for a while. But, like, the way these guys, like, run in-breakers and then bend back towards the line of scrimmage to get to the football because they know how late it's going to be. And they know they have to get in front of a hit is absurd, right?

Like, Kittle elevating for that floater, that ball should be a laser every single time. Elevating for that floater is just like, it just, they've been playing with them for so long. They just know how to kind of color in the margins. And Shanahan knows how to call around the margins. And it's just so funny to watch them kind of. just Uncle Bernie him along in that two-minute drill a little bit. But regardless, to me, the story of this game is the Zach Taylor stop embarrassing the award because on Friday, I made the case for the Bengals growing as a team, growing

as a young team, under a young coach. And Zach Taylor, who's never particularly impressed as a head coach during his tenure there in Cincinnati, getting the opportunity to captain a playoff push, make the playoff push, make it to a playoff game and just get some of that experience under his belt. And even if the Bengals are on a contending team right now, that'd be good for them. And then Zach Taylor kicked two field goals on fourth and less than three in the red zone. Sweetie, we can't be doing this still, man.

Like, it's just, you got to under, like, they've worked so hard to build out this running game with Joe Mixon. And then they get up against the San Francisco team that has no cornerbacks, none, zero, no corners. and they're just running the ball into the teeth of the front with no offensive line movement whatsoever. You've got to be able to learn lessons on the fly, man. You have to see what's happening to your team

in real time and understand when it's time to make changes. And when it's Jamar Chase's fourth catch that bends up being the touchdown that kind of ties the game and kickstarts us into overtime, it's like, man, that guy's fourth catch right there, right? T. Higgins' fourth catch is the corner route that sets up, not the, not the, the tying touchdown with the one before it

is that guy's fourth catch. Like, we made some mistakes here, brother. And then it is unfortunate because they do have the two muffed puns. And if you don't have those, San Francisco probably loses this game. Cincinnati probably wins it there at the end with the passing attack.

So you can always rewrite history. I understand how you could look at it and say we had some bad bounces. But Zach Taylor continues, like talking about Shanahan and Kettle and Debo kind of filling in the margins for a limited quarterback in Jimmy. Taylor continues to be a hampering

force on this team. That's really frustrating because I got all the way there on Bengals process, Kevin, I did. And the team we see right now, Kevin's fist pumping. He should be, this should be a team that even if we acknowledge they're in a tough AFC North and maybe not this year, this should be a team we're really excited about next year. It's tough to feel like their coach continue, it's tough to feel like their coach will stop making these limiting mistakes in these close games that they have to win against playoff teams. Yes, it was funny because the silver lining of this, Ben, I don't know if you saw the press conference afterwards, and I actually didn't hear the question. I assume, so before the, the field goal in overtime, they went run,

run, pass, and then Burrow was sacked, and that led to the field goal. And I assume that the second run is what the reporter was asking about. But Zach Taylor basically said, like, yeah, good point. I should have taken a shot at the end. He said, uh, that was an error and it'll keep me up at night. Yeah, keep me up at night too, Chief. Like, you got to like, this is easy stuff. That's also, I don't know if you've seen the state of the 49ers secondary lately, but like, that's not exactly a 400 level stuff. And also, I don't know if you've seen Joe Burrow in a big spot ever. Right.

I don't know if you, if you were familiar with what you drafted T. Higgins to do or Jamar Chase to do. He's a ball wins. Or Jamar Chase. Yeah. This is the moment for the boy, you know? So it was interesting to me to hear him publicly second guess himself, which a lot of coaches don't do.

But hopefully you can just learn from that and actually understand the next time you're in the situation. Like, listen, they didn't get a lot of reps with Burrow last year. I mean, obviously they had over a half a half. the season, but he was a young quarterback. I mean, I've written him about this million times, and that kind of the process of, of what he needs to do to get up to the point that he's basically running the offense. But this is, this is kind of new for them. And my only hope is that Zach Taylor understands what he has and really let's burrow, let loose no situations and doesn't run Joe

Mixen left tackle for three yards, okay? My secondary hope, if that is not my hope for Zach Taylor. Like, that's first hope. Secondary hope is that the Brown family, if Taylor doesn't get there, they recognize what they've got. And you move it quick. Because again, like, I can't have says this enough. The Bengals, like, actually spent money in free agency and it's working. And they got aggressive in the draft and it worked. And it's like, this might be it for the Bengals. They might get real. Like, this is a, this is an inflection point for this franchise. I'm going to stop you right there. The Brown family is not going to look at what they have and decide to make a move unless Zach Taylor's contract. It's a whole.

We're talking about hopes is the Christmas season, baby. I was actually going to ask you who might be a candidate. And then I was like, oh, actually, sorry, it's the Brown family. The only thing is Zach Taylor. They're going to do a nationwide search and they're going to find Zach Taylor. Surprise, he's under contract to be the head coach. Nora? George Kittle, George Kittle, George Kittle, George Kittle, George Kittle, George Kittle.

She's not wrong. This, this offense has Kittle back, Dibo back. John Jennings is playing well. obviously they lose Elijah Mitchell because they can never have every skill player healthy at once, but I would not want to play the Niners in the playoffs. They can just run it on you in 85,000 different ways. It is inconvenient. Furthermore, George Kittle.

Do you rest your case? I do. No, I don't. George Kittle's last two games, nine for 181 and two touchdowns, 13 for 151 and 1. That's today. That is stupid.

Yeah. George Kittle is stupid good at football. I see no lies. Okay. Do you mind if I spend this into our next super relative? Oh, sure. I was going to talk about Ravens Browns. And I think we need to talk about the AFC North because it's a mess and a half.

And so Browns 24, Ravens 22. Lamar got hurt on the first play of the second quarter. He's going to have further tests tomorrow. So Diana Rossini from ESPN reported that, yeah, has that been confirmed? Harbaugh said it's a low ankle sprain. Okay, great. The tests haven't been revealed, so we don't know at the timetable. That's what Harbaugh said.

But they think it's a low ankle sprain, which is better than a high ankle sprain. That's not a devastating injury. However, it's an injury to your quarterback, and they were already the most injured team in football. If I had to name this superlative, I would name it the Lamar, please get your contract done award. for my wanting Lamar to get his contract done. However, Tyler Huntley came in and made a game out of it for which we should all be grateful because it was entertaining to the end.

But what I think we need to get through here is who is going to win this division? Because I think the Ravens are beyond the point of no return just in terms of how banged up that team is. And everybody in that division has a tough schedule left, but theirs is brutal, brutal, brutal. It's Packers, Bengals,

Rams, Steelers. The Browns have Raiders, Packers, Steelers, Bengals. The Bengals have Broncos, Ravens, Chiefs, Browns. So again, everybody's got pretty tough sledding, but I just don't think that Baltimore, I mean, you could make a pretty good team out of guys that they have on IR,

like all together. If they, and they're still eight and five, but if they are going to fall out of it. I'm curious who you guys have more faith in to get into it between the Browns and the Bengals. I assume it's the Bengals based on the conversations that we're having. But right now, I know 538 has the Browns at 23% to win the division. The Bengals at 17. I'm surprised by that. I would have more faith in Cincinnati at the same time. Clearly,

something there. What do you guys think? So I clicked through 538 games, right? Just kind of like if I'm predicting it out as best I could and see who won what. And assuming a little more injury, I kind of gave the Ravens losses across the board. I had the Steelers winning it. Pittsburgh plays against Tennessee this upcoming. I didn't even introduce that into the conversation.

It's going to be a back door tightens take. Yeah. Well, so that's the thing is they get Tennessee in week 15. And I think the Steelers is the sort of team that matches up really well against Tennessee. Tennessee continues to be really, really, really rough on offense. Ugly game, low-scoring game, whatever. Then they get Kansas City. We assume that they lose to Kansas City.

Then it's week 17 against Cleveland. Winner, winner take all. Baker's not fair well against that Steelers defense. And we've seen the Steelers run defense get gash, right? Delvin Cook, oh, run the ball with Nick Chubb. This running offense for Cleveland has not been working last couple weeks. I don't have a good answer for you, but it hasn't. So week 17, Pittsburgh, Cleveland becomes the game.

And if Cleveland wins it, then week 18, Cleveland, Cincinnati. it becomes a game. But balls in Pittsburgh's court, assuming that they're able to get that win, and then assuming Cleveland takes a loss to Green Bay, which to me is pretty intuitive. And so barring a surprise win over Green Bay or Kansas City, which is done by a lot of these team's schedules, Week 17, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, to me is for the division. And right now off where both teams are, I would edge Pittsburgh slightly in that one. I'll put it this way. The team I'm fully the most out on right now is the Browns. I love that defense, love the way it came together. Offensively right now. They're a canoe without a paddle, man.

This run, the running game getting lost is a nightmare. Multiple tight ends out means that they are in such trouble in terms of formationally what they want to be. So unless they get in Joku and Brian back healthy right now, I don't see how the running game and the screen game comes back when that's not there. This passing game is not real, especially with the way Baker's playing. Hey, Ben, Ben, if you were to guess what percentage of Mayfield's passes today, traveled past the first down marker, what would you guess?

20. 28. Yeah. Mayfield is quickly becoming the Derek car of third, third and eight five-yard completions that, uh, that look very, very nice in the box. It's like the scary thing is that it just seems like this is the limit, right? Like they've figured out what they can do. That's not going to be a disaster. And if the running game is not working, it's Baker going 22 of 32 for 190 and just

throwing short and using a bunch of play action. And I don't quite know. where that gets you. I think it gets you to barely beating the incredibly injured Tyler Huntley Ravens. And that's not exactly

inspiring stuff. I don't love it. So I'm with you, Ben. I mean, I kind of think that this is going to, I know this is this is terrible analysis, but this is going to come down to some luck here. Injury luck.

I mean, these teams are so bunch together. They're so imperfect that I'm going to probably play through this scenarios later. I mean, I like in a vacuum. I like the Bengals. if Lamar is actually

I do too I'm not with you Ben just for the record and sorry I'm I'm I can see literally any scenario I do want to go through Nor you mentioned the the injured reserve Ravens right now

this is the these are the guys on just some of the guys on the injured reserve who kind of gets a cap right now I call this game could the injured Ravens beat Alabama Ronnie Staley Marcus Peters Marlon Humphrey

Derek Wolf Gus Edwards Deshawn Elliott J.K. Dobbins, Justice Sail, L.J. Fort. I'm not, and Prunel McPhee is at the bottom here as well. So I'm like, that is, that's a whole, that's a whole, that's a whole, that's a whole bunch of good players. Yeah. You could use those guys. And so the fact that they're still in contention, you know, they're not going to be, if it's Tyler Huntley. But that speaks to the stability of the organization,

Lamar Jackson, the guys they do have. But if Lamar misses time, that's, that's tough. Also, Clay's Campbell got banged up in this game. Yeah. Real quick, though. Like, yes, they're not going to be in contention if it's Tyler Huntley because they have the Packers and then they're at the Bengals, then they have the Rams and they have the Steelers. But Tyler Huntley, he has not been bad when he's been putting in relief, man.

He is functional enough. I don't think they steal the games. They're banged up everywhere else. But Huntley is, I'm impressed when I watch him play. I weirdly thought this was an incredibly, like, not necessarily a perfectly well-coached game on the field, like with play calling, but I weirdly felt like this was a testament to coaching

that this game was watchable, because Baker right now has an incredibly low ceiling, like a borderline non-competitive ceiling, but it seemed like at least the Browns understood that, and we're just like, all right, this is what we can do. We've had a week off, and we've figured out that what we've got is an eight out of seven,

and we're just going to try to squeak by with that. And then just, right, the fact that you can put Tyler Huntley in there and he can make a game out of it, I think is really, really impressive in a very weird way that seems kind of unimpressive, but I was impressed by it. Ben, is the reason that you think that the week 17 Steelers, Browns game was going to determine the division and not the week 18 Bengals Browns game is because you think that the Titans stink

and that the Steelers are an easy win next week? The Steelers right now are two and a half point dogs to the Titans. I would be shocked if that line closes at less than a pick-em. I'm just playing with the scenarios, and I'm just saying that it seems just as likely that Week 18, Bengals, Browns, is in play for a playoff spot as well. All I know is that the Titans got four picks

off Trevor Lawrence and scored a total of 20 points against the Jags. That's all I know right now. We're not. The Titans debate is the new. tears. We're not relitigating that. Sounds good. All right, Packers, 45, Bears, 30. So we put out questions,

a call for questions after the afternoon games. So we don't normally get Sunday night questions unless people send them in three, four hours after we asked. This is from Andrew Redston. Should Matt Nagy be fired for punting on fourth inches down 11 in the fourth quarter? The answer is yes, but he should also be fired for many of us. other things. So the bears

had a kind of a nice first half. Jakim Grant had a 97 yard touchdown, a 46 yard touchdown, one on special teams, one kind of a forward shovel pass. Demir Bird, a 54 yard touchdown. That was exciting. The second half was not exciting.

Ben, what did you think? Right. I think that that comparison, right, of those two explosive passing touchdowns that the bears got, both of which were like very low depth of target, right? It was that jet touch pass and like a little angle route out of the back field is a reminder that a lot of Nagy's one-offs are good, right? Like a lot of like Nagy's little stuff like, you know,

Redsone stuff or trick plays or a third down look or whatever is good. His base passing offense is like, what if we ran curls at the sticks? It's like, all right, this is ridiculous. But like a lot of the tricksy stuff is fun. And that's cool and that's why he's stuck around.

And then he's been a part of good staffs and good offenses. It also serves as a reminder that this guy has been hunting on fourth and inches the whole time he's been here and nobody around him or above him has said like hey here's a 26 year old with a Nikon degree

he's gonna tell you to go for it you're gonna do it or you're gone right and that's the thing is like there's parts of Nagy that you certainly like to keep in your building we're way past the point where it's like enough to keep doing it but it is a reminder that like yeah like they were in this game in part

because Nagy's got some cool stuff some cool tricks up his sleeve and then they also punt it down 11 in the 4th. And you're like, okay, well, then that's a staunch reminder that this isn't going to work out. We can't keep fooling ourselves with the 50-yard demure bird touchdowns. We've got to get past this.

Oof. Nora, the Bears, blow it up. Matt Nagy said at halftime that he was having so much fun. I saw that quote. It made me upset. I want Matt Nagy to experience real joy. I don't think this.

is it. I don't know if he thinks that this is it, but I don't think this is it. I think it gets better. I think that I really do think it gets better. Doesn't he have like seven kids? All right. Well, let's leave his kids out of it. I want men. Now you experience real joy. I do. I really do. I just, I do not believe that this is that. I agree. Do you think it's bad enough that he shouldn't be a coordinator next year? I think some space would help. And like I say, like, his, base stuff is not it, man. His hit, like, not only is his base stuff not it. When they run the base stuff, they run it poorly.

And maybe that trickles down to offensive coaching and tight ends coach and receivers coaches who I don't know and it's always difficult to evaluate positional coaches kind of in a vacuum because you don't really know how that stuff goes. But like the miss for Cole Commett on their first potential touchdown driver that had to kick a field goal. The Comette route is just bad. It's just a straight terrible route. The Rasul Douglas pick six.

Darnell Mooney all season long runs that outcome. too deep and too late. Oh, Dalton, fields, wins, losses, leading trailing.

It's always late. And Douglas is just on it, right? They are such a predictable team, both in what they do and how poorly they do it. Right? So I think some space would be good for him,

right? I'd take that year off. Like Peterson in Philadelphia, kind of the same thing where, you know, it lasted a little longer and his peak was much higher. But the office just started, started to get so bare bones west coast.

Like this is what we have to be able to do. This is the fundamentals. At the end that like Peterson's your office, hopefully letting him like watch some other offenses to be like there's other ways to beat cover three besides like slant flat until the cows come home. Right. And so I think, yeah, he probably would benefit not being a coordinator

and getting that space. Again, like I still think he's got good one-offs, but that's not, that's clearly not caught in the mustard anymore. Nora, Justin Fields told Chris Collinsworth now Michaels, he avoided the funny guys on the bears for weeks because his ribs hurt so much. He didn't want to laugh. That's someone who didn't have any joy over the past couple of months. Did you take anything away from this performance or because of the situation and the injury, you're putting on ice for a second? Yeah, I think you put it on ice. That's just a bummer.

It just, the bears make me sad, guys. I'm upset. Like, at least we got some nice. at least it was exciting, you know? At least it was a high scoring game. I'm just, I'm here to take the positives. I'm really worried about Justin Fields. I really want him to have a nice career, and I'm scared. Yeah, there are three rookie quarterbacks. I mean, Lance is still a question mark,

but there are three rookie quarterbacks who are all coming off of really rough games, box scorewise, Fields. Lawrence against the Titans, then Zach Wilson with the Jets against the Saints. the one who to me I watch and I'm always like you could just you could get it right now

if you were just together as a franchise is always Fields like having watched all three of those guys play like Lawrence is doing great stuff but there's like you know there's been a learning curve there clearly like coming out of the office he came out of him whatever Lawrence I have no worries about I'm writing about Zach Wilson this week different conversation but for Fields it's just you you watch like you know go to like the last play of the game and it's like all right

if Darnell Moody can catch a ball outside of his radius slash is not 510 because they're starting leading receiver is like a fifth round undersized pick, then we're out here and we're still pushing the ball. Like he's just, if he had anything, his left guard was legitimately on skates. Not like on skates. Oh, like a joke. He couldn't get his cleats on the ground. He was just being pushed backwards.

And just he couldn't stop. It's like, that's where we're at, man. It could be so easy with this guy. And it's frustrating that we have to like talk ourselves into the peak plays. and talk ourselves into fields looking like a good rookie. It should be so easy to see. It just gets obscured by everything that's around it. All right.

Let's go to the mailbag here. Easy one to start off from Marshall Weber, Micah, defensive player of the year. Mike Parsons was the unquestioned star of the football team Dallas game that Mike McCarthy oddly guaranteed a Dallas win. He delivered. Ben Solac, you're a draft expert.

You're a Micah Parsons expert. Is he exceeding your expectations? Yeah. it was such a nice thing to say at the end of sentences on radio hits, right? Oh, Michael Parsons, stack linebacker, really athletic, really big. He's going to be able to play zones. He's got size, got a good instinct. He fits the runway's physical.

Oh, and you know what? You can rush him as the pastor too, right? Because he kind of did that in high school and he's got that build. Yeah, and then you throw it away and then whatever. He's got, what, is it, 12 sacks? 12, 12, 12, 13? Yeah, 12. 15?

12 sacks. It's absurd, right? Like, this is banana's production. He's going to probably break the rookie sack record to continue going like this. Yeah, worth noting as well, he was like getting a lot of production from stand-up outside Rush linebacker when Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence were out because they were trying to fill that on the line of scrimmage first level role on third down. Gregory and Lawrence are back together for the first time since week one. So now he's a designated blitz guy, right? He's a guy coming from the second level with velocity at a guard.

It's completely different. It's like not because it's just still him being an amazing athlete, but it's still like a, it's a, it's a, different angle, it's different path to the quarterback, it's different timing, and it's just pick up and go. He is such a natural, right? And that's what's so delightful about him. I think he's still defensive rookie of the year because there are other worthy defensive players of the year, and those guys will get that award, and Parsons will just get defensive rookie, and everybody will feel happy with that. But if this is like a quiet year for Garrett and for T.J. Watt, yeah, I mean, Parsons right now would be your leader in the clubhouse,

which is thrilling to say. Ben, do you think he's been good enough as a peer edge rusher that you would try to get him snaps there going forward even with those guys back or would you put him back in his intended role close to full time? No, because even when he was getting those reps, it was still like rotational, like on base downs, they want him off all. Yeah, he would. Right? Yeah.

Exactly. And the thing is that like the value of that offensive line having to spend all week in meeting rooms and in film rooms going, okay, in this look, where's 11? In that look, where's 11? Like that, I love the idea of being able to steal time from meetings. I love being able to do that as a coach. And the fact that if I move Parsons around, they have to prep for, okay, when they have Gregory and Lawrence here on this side and the Parsons over there, when he's steep, when he's

this and he's that, I make you prep for everything. And then if I live with him at linebacker for a whole game, so that's my game plan. Cool. But you had to prep for everything. But so you're saying yes in general, you would keep him moving around. You wouldn't just say, we've got those guys back. Your role is off the ball linebacker. We're going to stick you there for, you know, 90 percent.

counts right now. He was like double digits on the edge for a lot of the time. It was absent. I would expect him to be more like, you know, eight to ten snaps a game as opposed to like 15 snaps a game. Hey, Ben, I want to run through this with you, okay? Okay. Right now, would you rather have Micah Parsons or just play a game? I know what you're going to say at the beginning, but let's just go down. Okay. Okay. D. P.O.I. Not defensive rookie of the year. Defensive player of the year. Parsons versus T. T.J. Watt. Who's your vote? I vote what and it's because the Steelers' offense has been so demonstrably

better when he's on the field. To me, I see the wins come from what? Miles Garrett. Probably still Garrett, but that one's definitely closer. To me, Watt is the defense player of the year. So, yeah, I probably still go Garrett. But again, that's just my gut being like, we'll just give Parsons defense a rookie of the year.

You know what I mean? I have that out, so it's like cheating a little bit. Two more. Matthew Judon. Parsons. Okay. The only reason is Judon does have 12 and a half sacks, so it's a little bit different. And there's one more player. There's a couple other players who have 12 sacks.

Don't get mad, but I'm just going to throw this out there. Trey Henderson. Listen, they felt his absence. He was out for that second half of that. I know. He's got 12 and a half sacks. The other name that I think should be put up there is J.C. Jackson, who just,

JC Jackson is going to have seven interceptions every season until we all die. And it's just never going to get the Gilmore notification on it. But man, he is just, wild consistent. JC Jackson is what Cowboys fans think Trayvon Diggs is. Yeah. He actually gets interceptions and doesn't give up the most yardage in football. Yeah.

That Cam Sims out and up was real slow and was real telegraphed, and Trayvon Diggs was still biting on that out, baby. He's going to give up. He's like a honestly, like I actually might write about this. He's like an old, like 90s baseball player who's going to get 50 homers and strike out like unbelievable amount of times or like hits one. 90. Like, Trayvon Diggs is going to give

the most dartage of any defensive back in football and he's also going to just set an interception record. He's an amazing player. And I'm going to respect it. Absolutely. I'm in. All about the highlight reels to watch with this kid for content, which was an adorable video.

Dude, I love the guy. I mean, who would you rather see right now than Trayvon Diggs? Mm-hmm. I'm watching Trayvon Diggs. Who knows what's going to happen? I would rather see Aiden Diggs. Oh, that's true.

Well, they're a packaged deal. They're together. That's how families work. nor anything on defense player of the year. Just, Garrett did have a scoop and score, which I thought was funny because it was kind of like,

Parsons for DPOY question mark. And he was like, all right, I'm going to do something. Yeah. But I like Ben's out of, just give him the rookie award and we'll see how it goes.

Yeah, and then do this again next year and then he can get defensive player of the year that year. Right, let's all meet back here, this time next year. All right. So let's have Benfield this one

because he really, really, really wants to field this one. It's from Ross Keith. Is Justin Herbert Human? No, man. That young man was fashioned. He was built in a laboratory, man. They put a custom rig together. That's no.

This is gene editing or something. This is test tube nonsense. This is something that's questionable. ethically, man. Justin Herbert is something else. This is, I don't know what it was, man. But I don't know if it was, it was Brandon Staley kicking a door in

or Justin Herbert kicking a door on or something. But Lombardi took the gloves off, and this offense is awesome. Because it was always, like, fundamentally sound. It was just, where do we take our shots and what do we do with our shots? And they just, they've found a balance. Maybe it's like a two-game thing

and it falls away or whatever. But they found it right before a critical chiefs game that could decide the AFC West, Favy. I mean, I am enamored with this offense. I am enraptured by Justin Herbert. This is all that of bag of chips. Okay. So Thursday night to me, it's not the biggest game.

I mean, the Chiefs in the Chargers played a bigger game, I think, in 2016, if you remember that. But it's one of the most intriguing games of maybe the last five years from me. Because I just want to see where these teams are. Like, I just want to see where the chiefs are going and where the chargers are going for 2021. And that'll help me inform just a little bit what the next three years is going to look like. So I'm fascinated to see that. Nora, Justin Herbert. Great.

Great quarterback. Questionably of normal human flesh and blood. With Ben, might be alien. Might be kind of a Dr. Frankenstein's monster situation. but hopefully with a happier ending. I think there might be some hijinks going on there because those throws are unreal. That Chargers Chiefs game coming up,

Brandon Staley in the post game presser said, if, you know, if Austin Echler had to go back into this game, he would have, we were just sad. So we sat him. Derwin, the way he talked about him, who didn't play this week, sounds like they're trying to save and make sure he was healthy. I think the Chargers were the Chiefs out of town in that game.

Also, Assonte Samuel, near maybe. Yeah, right. Has practiced. Yeah, I right now lines are moving very heavily towards the Chiefs. I understand why they just scored 48 points against the Raiders. I think the Chargers boat race them and I can't wait to see it. It's a big call.

Chargers' defense is selling in. Linville's healthy. I wrote about the Chiefs Defense this week. It's a little bit House of Cardzi. I think the Chargers put it on them in a big way. Are we sure? Are we sure? I love Justin Herbert. We've talked about this a million times. And I was really impressed last week, again, against the Bengals. Are we sure that the Giants haven't just quit?

Listen, Joe Judge went for it on a fourth down, baby. They're learning. They're evolving. They're growing. It was a fake pontiff on a fourth and nine with a punter throwing a field out, all right? A field, like far hash out. But he did go for it on a fourth down. So, no, we're still the fighting Joe judges, baby.

They're laying a foundation. They were calling timeouts down. down 24 with less than two minutes left. A Twitter username Peter Griffith asks, does Urban Meyer make it to the end of the season with his job, Nora? Not if Urban Meyer has anything to say about it, apparently. He really doesn't want to get to the end of the year. I think like the con family might.

I think if he hasn't gotten fired at this point, like they'll just see it through. But I don't know if this is controversial to say, that man does not want that job. That man is not behaving in a manner consistent with someone who wants to be the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguards. I'm not going to do a full rant here.

Maybe I'll rant during the week. I don't want to waste everybody's time. Kind of rehashing what we already had whatever, Meyer. He's a culture coach, quote unquote, culture coach, who has no culture. He has had schemes. He doesn't have them anymore.

The sloppiness has astounded me. And he has, doesn't want to be there. And the, the reports you saw over the weekend, I think, surprised no one. And I think it's just a matter of time now. I want to still last week. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. He has a culture. The culture is actively terrible. It's among the worst cultures I've ever seen. But I don't think what he's installing, I don't think like he's trying to install this culture. Like it's like they say about startups. If you don't have a culture, you're not going to like the one that develops. Like, I think that I don't think they, I'm not sure that if you berate your assistance and

tell them that they've never accomplished anything and that they're losers and that they have to defend their track records to you, I'm not sure you're just like not positively enforcing a good culture and letting something negative seep in through the cracks. I think you are actively damaging something that theoretically at some point you built because you hired those people. Sure. And listen, Meyer has always been hard on as coaches. There were always stories. about, I think at Florida, when I say it was Dan Drayton, somebody like that, I think admitted to having cried because Merriman Meyer was so hard on them. And then I think he went to work for him later on, like that, those sort of stories are sort

of common. That's not going to work with some coaches and it's going to work with almost no NFL coaches. And so this whole thing he's building, it's all for, it's for nothing at this point, or Waysian Trevor Lawrence. Ashlyn Sullivan who covers, I think the team for the team, she thinks she works for the Jaguars. But she was talking earlier today on Twitter about how Trevor Lawrence goes through each interception after he throws it and says why he made the decision,

what went wrong, and takes responsibility for the parts that he is responsible for. And I was thinking about that because I think he's been doing that since Clemson. but taking responsibility is is a bold thing to do right now in Jacksonville and Trevor Lawrence seems to be the only person who's doing it and I hope that whoever is in charge at this point where that's Trent Balke or Rashid Khan or whoever realized that that's the kind of person Trevor Lawrence that you help

and you don't stick people like Urban Meyer around him and ruin the next four years of his career. Ben? Yeah. To that point, Trevor Lawrence is like a ridiculously chill dude. To the point where when he was coming out in the draft process, there was the inevitable like, what if he doesn't love football enough question, right? This guy's multiple time national champion, whatever comes in. So I've never heard him, and it comes in, things are all rosy.

So there wouldn't be really an opportunity to do this. But I had never really heard Lawrence, like in the media say explicitly something that's wrong with the team that he would like to see change, like to the public. And he said after last week's game against the Rams that James Robinson's got to be on the field. James Robinson, he said, was one of our best offensive players. He's got to be out there. James Robinson had six carries for four yards in this game. Now, that's six out of the seven total carries running back Scott. I understand that. But to me, what we have right now, if you're just like a decision maker in Jacksonville, We have number one overall pick, promised child, golden boy, Trevor Lawrence saying, I want James Robinson on the field.

And then the offensive staff does not get James Robinson the ball on the field. Who do I want to piss off here? Who do I want to be wrong here? Lawrence or the coaching staff? It's not even remotely a discussion. This is the guy I invested in. If you're already losing Lawrence within a year, and again, like this is Trevor Lawrence, the way he's always acted. If you're already like losing him and generating tension within a year, that's a,

that's a failure for the ages. That's generational failure. That's unbelievable. Other teams won't be able to match this with the way they mishandle their rookie quarterbacks. That to me speaks to just the intensity, right? The degree to which we are just nowhere right now in Jacksonville, how far apart these parties are.

It is impossible to list of reason to keep any member of the coaching staff there any longer. Tell you something. If you run into a losing coach in the morning, and you run into a losing coach in the afternoon, you're the losing coach, okay? You hired these people. Yeah.

Okay, it's not just one guy. It's not Daryl Beville is the loser. It's not Brian Schottenheimer as a loser. You assembled the staff of losers. Okay, so you're the ultimate loser. And I understand, I'd said earlier today, it's like watching him after the game kind of no-cell variable handshake.

It was like, it was a little bit like at the end of fight club where it's like, oh, you know, you're realizing that you are the loser yourself, right? You're the losing coach yourself. They were co-workers. Well, yeah, they didn't love each other as co-workers. Well, sure, but like, it's just ridiculous. Actors of the child is just so, it's unnecessary.

It was extremely loaded handshake. I think Braybill and Meyer of a history. Let's play a game where we list the assistants who enjoyed working with Urban Meyer and were on good terms with him. One. Charlie Strong. Charlie Strong back in Jacksonville. Okay, two.

You did give me with Charlie Strong. I was not ready for Charlie. That one I give you. I think Dan Mullen might like it. Urban hate him Mullen. Well, I mean, they had some good times. Right, but Urban has quotes about how like he had to like recruit despite Dan Mullen. Oh, yeah.

No, no, no. I know that. I know that. But they, you know, they scheme wise, they were on the same wavelength. I've talked to. Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Right. So that's it. There's two. Right. In the winning Cura's All Ill sort of conversation, right? Sure, sure. And they were together in a bunch of different stops. Yeah, yeah.

They're good. That's it. So it's two people. And only one of them currently works with the Jacksonville Jaguars. So I'm just still thinking about the screenshot of Irvin when he was on Fox talking about the, the criteria for struggling teams. It's precious, precious content right now. So anyway, people were like, oh, he's won at every level, blah, blah, well, he has one at the NFL. And what's funny to me is in the Pelliserr article where they're talking about the resume thing,

I guarantee you, Darrell Bevel, who's won a Super Bowl, like, winning in the college level to people in the NFL, it's cool and we're all college football fans. And we, like, they're all college of ball fans. But it's basically trivia to them. Like, it's basically fun facts. It's basically like going around the office and saying, here's my fun fact about me. I've won multiple college national championships. It means nothing to the running backs coach. It means nothing to the NFL wide receivers coach.

And so that's what's so funny to me about sort of the resume thing with that. So anyway, Urban Meyer, time to go, bud. All right, let's get to Ruizans. Wow. Urban gets a goodbye and I don't. All right, now it's time for Ruizans. Stephen, what's going on, buddy? I want to thank you guys for having me on Chiefs Raiders today

because I had to watch the condensed game after the games ended and I only had to watch the first half for this one. I could just cut it off right after they went down 35-0. Efficiency, baby. We love it. Did the condensed game feature the Raiders dancing at midfield and then giving up flat show touchdowns? No, which is a problem.

I have an issue with that NFL. NFL Game Pass is so bad. You have to involve that. That's the story of the game. You can't tell the story of the game without that clip, right? You actually have to upgrade. It's a, it's, you have to upgrade to the premium package it includes taunting and pettiness.

Tunting plus. When the all 22 comes out, I want all 22 of them doing that. I want all 22 plus taunting. Wait, also, Kevin, they didn't dance on the logo. They just stood on it and had a meeting, right? Did I miss dancing? I look, they were out there. They were standing on the logo.

Jumping up and down. That's like how you dance in middle school where you just like stand awkwardly in the center of a room. You said they had a meeting? They went through like third down out there. I'm looking at the EPA numbers and apparently they did not talk about third down all week. I haven't looked into it.

I saw the video. I saw the sideline video. Again, the all 22 of the logo meeting has not come out yet. So we don't know exactly what it is. We'll get Ruizan back on on Wednesday to break it down. So let's get to the actual football here, Stephen. So this was another Mahomes blowout of Gus Bradley and the Raiders. I saw a staff, I believe, if Patrick Mahomes.

was playing only against the Raiders this year. He'd be on pace for around 70 touchdowns because of Gus Bradley because of the Raiders defense. What did you see? Are the Chiefs back or is this just the Raiders being the Raiders? No, I think it's the Raiders being the Raiders and I think it's Gus Bradley being Gus Bradley. Like we've been talking about how the Chiefs have a problem passing against two high defenses and that's where the league has gone over the last two years in response to the Chief's explosion ever since Pat Mahomes came along.

But when they play the Raiders, it's like they get to go back. time to 2018 and play against defenses they were playing against back then. Like, that's what it looks like. It was the same exact defense. A bunch of cover three, which is Gus Bradley's thing. And the results were exactly the same. The offense scored 41 points in the week 10 game. They scored 41 points this game.

And if you look at the EPA splits, like between early downs and third downs, they're like exactly the same in both games. 0.09, 0.08 for early downs. and then 1.2 for third down in both games. It's amazing. I've never seen this before. They literally played the same exact game twice. So I want to flip this around to the Chiefs here for in a second,

but I want to stick around to the Raiders here. Do the Raiders have the capability to be a good defense in these situations? Is there a defensive coordinator who could actually put the clamps on Mahomes? Is this a personnel thing or is this just on Gus Bradley? I think it's just on Gus Bradley. I mean, like, when you think about how their roster is constructed, the teams that have given problems to this offense, the Chief's offense, when it's been rolling,

are the teams that have a good pass rush. And I think the Raiders do have a good pass rush. So that should be enough to build a game plan where you're not giving up 40 points a game. Against a team that hasn't scored 40 points a game against anyone else. Like, you look at their other point totals in this little stretch. Their point differential is plus one point. point three points per game against every other team they've played in the NFL and plus 33 points

per game against the Raiders. They haven't scored over 30 points against a non-Rater's team since the Washington game midway through October. Is that good? It's not. It's not. Um, okay, so we're firing Gus Bradley? Oh yeah. They should have fired him before this game. Like what? How many people, how many people have you fired this year? Wait. There's one. There's one person he didn't fire. There's one person he did not fire on Wednesday, and it was Urban Meyer on the firing show. Stephen, do you have any regrets about that particular take? Oh, yeah, they should fire him.

I'm an idiot. I feel dumber than the Jaguars should feel for hiring him. And what's funny is I wrote a thing on Monday looking at the coaches on the hot seat and whether they should be fired or not, and I picked fire them for every, every coach. like that was the conceit of the article was supposed to be saying like should they keep their job and I just ruined it because I'm very pessimistic. So here's what I want. I think you should keep doing what you're doing. Do what's in your heart.

But I would like next season for there to be a complete tracker of everyone you have canceled or fired, Stephen, because I do feel that we need some measure of accountability for who you have discarded to the side of the road. But here's the thing. Only one team wins the Super Bowl. So I'm going to, so I look smart at the end of the year because I cancel all these teams. Only one team wins the Super Bowl. The problem is if one of the teams I canceled wins the Super Bowl, which is very possible.

Arjuna says he has, producer Arjuna says he has a list of all the canceled Ruiz teams. No, just from the Friday show, though. That's only scratching the surface. Oh, so, okay. So this is also on the Sunday show and then like in his personal life. On the Friday show, we have a segment where I cancel a team every week. and at the beginning of the year, every time I cancel the team,

they'd win the following week, and I'd look like an idiot. But like the last eight teams I've canceled have continued to lose, so I've turned it around. Unlike Gus Bradley. The Chiefs aren't canceled, right? No, I never canceled the Chiefs, surprising.

Like, I've been on the Chiefs, I've been telling people, the defense is going to fix itself, and then the offense is going to fix itself. I don't know if that's ever going to happen with the offense, but I mean, they went, they, you know, they scored. They went nine of 13 on third down,

though. like that's not sustainable. They're still not. 48 points. It is 48 points. Yeah, 48 points. I short-changing on my touchdown. Okay, so let's talk about the chiefs here for a second.

So Hill had 76 yards. Took a big hit at one point. So you may have been a little bit hobbled. Travis Kelsey had 27 yards. What am I seeing from this chief's offense right now? I think they're still too relying on the option routes where they, the receiver's not running like a designed run, a route. He's reacting to where the defense is going.

And like in the past, that's worked with Kelsey. Kelsey Mahomes have been on the same page. But I think defenses are doing a better job of taking him away. And then the option stuff with the other receivers where he doesn't have this great rapport with them necessarily like he does with Kelsey, I don't, they're not, they're missing on them. Like they're not on the same page. And I think that's been the huge problem with this offense.

In addition to not being able to, you know, defenses over the top because of how they're playing. And I think that's what they need to get solved before the playoffs is like, how do we continue to feed Kelsey when defenses know we're giving him the ball? And they can't do it right now. Is that you had Kelsey on Washed Watch a couple weeks ago. He got out of it a little bit. He had 27 yards today.

Is that a Kelsey problem? Is that just a defensive tenancy problem? And like what can you diagnose that problem for me? Yeah. I don't think it's Kelsey so much anymore. I think he looks healthier now. Like at the beginning of the year, he just didn't look like the same player,

but he's moving better now. I think in this game, he had 27 yards, but the Raiders, like, put two people on him on every key third down. So I think what his job was. They decided to give up 48 points,

but they were not letting Travis Kelsey beat them. Right. You got to claim the small victories. I'm sure Gus Bradley was in the locker room, like saying, hey, we held Kelsey to 27 points. How about that? Do you think Gus Bradley was in on the logo stomped?

I need to study the tape and figure that out, because that would be hilarious. Gus Bradley He woke up on Sunday with two priorities to stomp on the logo and take Travis Kelsey out of the game and he was two for two.

That's right. And to play a shitload of cover three so he was technically three for three. Oh wow. Okay, so you're not feeling any better about the Chiefs this week. No, I don't think my perception of this team changes after this game.

I mean, we've seen them play this exact same game four weeks ago. I don't know why it would change. Until they score 30 points against a team that's not coached by Gus Bradley, I'm going to have my reservations. Nora, you were, you had some criticism of the Chiefs offense. Is this still a Gus Bradley caveat? I'm actually, I was a little encouraged just because I would love to see them do it

against a team that's not the Raiders. They play the Chargers on Thursday. So we're going to have a good test case pretty soon. I will say I was slightly encouraged just to see them do it again, right? Like, doing it twice feels slightly more meaningful than just doing it once. But if they look good against the Chargers, I will be fully back in like, okay, deity status regained. Let's go. Let me, can I read off the Chiefs point totals going back to the 24th of October?

And you guys try to pick out the games that came against Gus Bradley. Okay. Three? 3.20. 13.41.91. 19. 22. 48. Steven, I have a guess. Which ones do you think it was? I think it's the games where they scored 40 or more points. Exactly. I cannot let this segment end without noting that not only was there the logo incident.

Last year, there was the taking the lap of Arrowhead and the bus incident. And the Chief's PA person played wheels on the bus. over the speakers as the Raiders were leaving the field. What song are they going to call back to next season that gets them back? I mean, I guess maybe they already got them back for the logo thing because, you know, they beat them by 38 points. But we got to think on what song they're going to pull out to reference it next year. It's a great question.

I had completely forgotten about the victory, the bus lap. thing. Maybe it's like the middle? One of those, yeah, the middle. Yeah. It's good. Because like middle of the field. There was so, the bus, the bus lap thing was like 50 mini scandals ago. So it just worked itself out of my brain. It's, it's not a scandal though. It wasn't a scandal.

At least they waited until they won that game. It was like a mini, like Gruden got mad because the media was making a big thing. Like, it was like a tourist press conference like four days later. It was like a, it was a micro scandal. Yeah. Yeah, it had left my brain, too, until the Chiefs PA guy played wheels on the bus, not normally what you hear at the end of a football game. My main takeaway from this game is that David Carr is going to feel awfully dumb

when the Raiders don't end up winning the Super Bowl. I don't think that's going to happen now. Will Derek Carr not be the most valuable player of all time if that happened? He's not on track. I did not see that type of performance out of Derek today. All right, Stephen, you want to drop one really quick take. Nora and I know what it is. The listeners do not,

and I want them to prep themselves for it. The floor is yours for a Ruiz take. All right, I'm going to preface it first. Quarterback is the most important position, and the biggest advantage of NFL team can have is having a very good to elite quarterback on a rookie contract. I think we all agree with that. It's one of the biggest advantages in all of sports.

So my take is that Justin Herbert isn't just the most valuable player in the NFL right now, like based on real value, He's the most valuable American athlete right now. And I can't think of one person. I don't watch baseball. I'm going to be honest with you. I can name like three baseball players.

So this might be a bad take. But I can't think of anyone who's more valuable right now. Stephen, what did you do when you saw the deep touchdown pass to Guyton? I mean, I didn't have much of a reaction. I yelped a little. And it scared my cat. And my cat ran under the couch.

And I'm going to be honest with the guys, I haven't seen my cat since in like two hours. Like Justin Herbert may have killed my cat. All right. Well, maybe we should let you go deal with that. I'll go find my cat. All right. Thank you to Ben, Nora, Stephen.

Thank you to production assistant, Isaiah Blakely with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramkapal. This has been the Renner NFL show on the Renner Podcast Network.